 Good morning. I'm Mike Smith, Secretary of the Agency of Human Services. Governor Scott is currently on another call with fellow governors and White House officials, but he'll be joining us shortly. Today I'll start with an update of Vermont's vaccine rollout, and then we'll hear from Commissioner Harrington, who will give us an update on 1099s. Then Commissioner Pichek will present our weekly modeling. And finally, Dr. Levine will provide a health update, and when the governor arrives, he'll give us an update on his discussions with White House officials. As many of you know, vaccinating Vermonters can and will help us emerge from the pandemic more quickly. We have already seen evidence of this as we have been able to vaccinate some of our most vulnerable Vermonters and loosen restrictions in both long-term care and travel. We are fortunate that our vaccine allocation continues to increase, which means more Vermonters can be vaccinated, and we are encouraged as other high-effective vaccines are considered for emergency use approval. Now, I would like to share our progress with the community vaccination program. Over 91,000 Vermonters have been vaccinated against COVID-19. 44,700 Vermonters have received their first dose, and 46,400 have received their last dose. So far, 66% of Vermonters in the 75 years old and above range group and 18% of Vermonters in the 70 to 74 years old and above age group have received at least their first dose of vaccine. Approximately 1,122 homebound Vermonters have received their first dose of vaccine. We continue to work with our healthcare partners to identify those who do not receive home health services. We anticipate having our call center ready to receive requests for appointments from homebound individuals early next week for those who have yet to be reached. I'm happy to report that we have made great progress with our phase three vaccination program, and we will open registration to another age group next week. On Monday, March 1st, Vermonters 65 years old and above will be able to make an appointment to receive their COVID-19 vaccination. There are approximately 42,000 Vermonters in this category. Registration will begin at 8.15 a.m. next Monday. I encourage this group to go online at healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine and set up an account ahead of time so that you'll be prepared to make an appointment on Monday once registration opens. When you have an established account on Monday, March 1st, you can simply log in, pick a place, date, and time to get your vaccine. A short video about the registration process and other helpful information is available at healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine. In addition, I do wish to alert those in the high risk category or phase five. These are about 75,000 Vermonters aged 16 to 64 that in a few weeks we plan to open registration for this phase. Please do not contact your health care provider about eligibility. We will have more information to share with you next week. I want to remind Vermonters that demand for the vaccine still outweighs the ability of the federal government to supply states with enough vaccine to meet that demand. Vermont has prioritized its distribution to prevent severe illness, hospitalization, or death. Over 90% of our deaths have occurred in those 65 and older. That is why we've chosen to prioritize our distribution of the vaccine in the way that we have to protect the most vulnerable. Last week I mentioned that we had additional vaccine appointments in various areas. Our goal is to make it easier for Vermonters to get vaccinated as soon as possible. For the next seven days, we are adding additional vaccine appointments in St. Albans, Essex Junction, St. John'sbury, Winooski, Hardwick, Randolph, Rutland, and Bellis Falls. If you would like to reschedule for an earlier appointment, please call our vaccine call center at 855-722-7878. We are also looking at additional sites in Windsor County. And starting in the first week of March, we are redeploying a small contingent of Vermont National Guard personnel to staff additional clinics where they are needed. We are also planning for our larger deployment of the Guard personnel in the latter part of March. In addition, we are planning with Kinney Drugs for a large vaccine event in Berry in the first week of March. Approximately 1,000 doses of vaccine are anticipated to be available for that event. Walgreens is offering vaccine clinics and sites through the federal pharmacy program. This week, Walgreens stores in Vermont received over 4,000 doses of vaccine. We anticipate they will begin scheduling appointments as early as today. To find out the time and place of their clinics or to make appointments at Walgreens, you can access the link at our website which is healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine or go directly to the Walgreens website at Walgreens.com. Again, anyone who has previously been eligible to receive a vaccine will continue to be eligible. I also want to remind everyone that while we are making great progress in our vaccination program, we still need to remain vigilant. Many people still have not been vaccinated. Getting tested for COVID-19 is important. It's easy. We offer it in numerous locations across the state and it's free. On February 27th, we are planning an additional testing opportunity located at the St. Albans American Legion from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. You can make an appointment or walk in to be tested. You can find other available locations, dates, and times on the website at healthvermont.gov slash COVID-19 slash testing. Again, it's important to be tested for COVID-19 if you have symptoms of COVID-19. Please call your health care provider first. You are referred by a health care provider. You haven't been vaccinated and a person in your workplace or household or a person you attended an event with tested positive for COVID-19. You haven't been vaccinated and gathered with people you don't live with. You should get tested before the gathering and as soon as two days after the gathering and again seven days after that gathering. The bottom line is this. The sooner you know if you have the virus, the sooner you can protect yourself, your loved ones, and your community from COVID-19. I'll now turn it over to Commissioner Harrington who will give us an update on 1099s. I want to take a moment this morning to provide Vermonters with an update on the 1099 incident that occurred earlier this month and our timeline for issuing new 1099 documents from the Department of Labor. But first I do want to take a second and take this opportunity to again apologize to those who have been impacted by this incident, but also to say thank you for being patient with us as we work to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. I know this has been unsettling and has caused additional stress and worry during a time where there is already so much uncertainty. I also know that claimants are eager to receive their new 1099 documents from the Department and I want them to know that they should expect them later next week. Ensuring the new information is the best it can be has been our top priority for the past three weeks. As many are aware, the Department issued a mass recall of all Department of Labor 1099 documents that had been mailed in early February. As part of this recall, individuals received a prepaid return envelope to return the original 1099 to the Department. If you received a return envelope but did not receive a 1099, this is likely because your 1099 was stopped before it could be delivered, which is good news. By now, all 2020 unemployment claimants have been mailed a letter with details and instructions on how to enroll in ID theft protection services being offered by the state and at no additional cost to the individual. We expect that most people will receive this letter by the end of this week. Claimants have until May 18th, 2021 to enroll in protection services and the protection is retroactive to January 29th. Over the last few weeks, the Department and other state agency partners have been reviewing and validating claimant details and tax information to ensure the new 1099 documents are as accurate as possible. The new 1099 documents are expected to be mailed by early next week. We know there is likely going to be some confusion given that most claimants will receive multiple 1099 documents from the Department. This is intentional and is not a mistake or error. During the 2020 calendar year, the Department of Labor administered nine different types of benefits through five different programs. Because of this, a separate 1099 document from the Department will be issued for each program in which the claimant received benefits. So in some cases, an individual could receive as many as four 1099 documents. Before 1099s are delivered, claimants will receive a letter from the Department of Labor with additional information and guidance, including an explanation of each 1099 benefit program. Beyond the two base programs of regular unemployment insurance and pandemic unemployment assistance, claimants could potentially receive a 1099 for the lost wages assistance program, or LWA, the Vermont short-term supplemental benefit, or VSTF, and finally the $1,200 prepaid benefit from the state treasury. Each program is identified in the bottom left-hand corner of the 1099 tax document. I also want to remind claimants that taxes were not withheld from the LWA, VSTS, or $1,200 treasury benefit payments. This was done in order to expedite benefit payments and minimize the administration of these programs. However, it also means that claimants are responsible for reporting and paying taxes on these benefits. I want to close by reminding claimants that personal income taxes are due to the IRS and the Vermont Department of Taxes by Thursday, April 15, 2021. With updated 1099s going out from the Department in the coming days, we expect that most claimants will have more than 30 days to file their taxes. However, if you are concerned about this timeline, we encourage you to visit the Vermont Department of Taxes website for more information at tax.vermont.gov. Additionally, further updates on the reissuing of the 1099s will be posted to the Department of Labor website. Claimants who are unable to access the internet can also call the Claimant Assistance Center at 877-214-3332, again 877-214-3332, and select option one for the latest update on the 1099 process. Thank you again, and I will now turn it over to Commissioner Pichek for the modeling update. Thank you very much, Commissioner Harrington, and good morning, everyone. This week, there is reason for further optimism as cases, hospitalizations, and deaths show improving trends nationally, regionally, and also here in Vermont. The light at the end of the tunnel has never appeared brighter, but we must remain vigilant as we bridge into the warmer weathers and the continued progress with our vaccination program. The U.S. has now seen six straight weeks of decreasing case growth, with the seven-day new case average following 74 percent during that time. The seven-day case average has not been this low since the third week of October, and it is now lower than the U.S. peak from this past summer. The case decrease continues to be geographically broad as well, with 47 states experiencing fewer cases this week compared to last. These trends are expected to continue with national forecasts anticipating that we will see decreasing cases over the next few weeks. The number of people hospitalized has also decreased for six straight weeks, following 54 percent during that time, and the seven-day average has now dropped below 60,000 people currently hospitalized, which is in line with our two previous peaks from this summer and from this spring. Further, the hospitalization decrease is also very broad geographically, with 49 states seeing their numbers improve this week compared to last. And most thankfully, we are continuing to see improvement in the U.S. daily fatality rates, with the seven-day average falling 36 percent in just the last 14 days. And with the national cases forecasted to continue their decline, we should anticipate seeing fewer hospitalizations and fewer deaths in the weeks ahead. While this data is certainly encouraging and gives us great reason for optimism for the future, yesterday we crossed a very grim milestone with over a half a million U.S. citizens now, deaths now attributable to the pandemic. In just under a year, COVID now ranks as one of the deadliest events in U.S. history, surpassing deaths from previous wars and, unfortunately, marching closer to the death toll from the 1918 pandemic as well. Certainly the best way for all of us to honor those who have died is to protect ourselves and our families and to follow the public health guidance and to step up and get vaccinated when it's our turn. Later to home, the Northeast region experienced another week of significantly fewer cases compared to last, with just under 77,000 cases reported this week, a 14,000 decrease from the week before, with every state seeing improvement. This is the sixth straight week where regional cases have declined, and this period also saw significant improvement across the region regarding the positivity rate, hospitalization rate, and fatality rate as well. Looking at the regional heat map, we can see that the continued widespread improvement across New England and the mid-Atlantic is quite significant, and we continue to see that improvement in both rural and urban areas of our region, and this lower case trend will certainly serve Vermont very well in the weeks and months to come. Finally, the regional forecast anticipates that future improvement will continue throughout March and into April, but a word of caution as we do not know how significant of a role the new variants may play over this period. But there is again reason for optimism as we watch cases continue to drop in the U.K. and in South Africa, but it's something that we need to watch very closely. This past week here in Vermont, we reported 727 new cases, a decrease of 89 cases compared to last week, with the 7-day average continuing to show gradual improvement, with cases down nearly 40 percent since early January. And again, although we're only seeing gradual improvement in our overall case counts, we are continuing to see significant improvement among those who are 75 and older, with cases in that age group declining 71 percent over the past month. And as you can clearly see, the more significant improvement among this age group on the chart with vaccinations continuing to protect more and more of our most vulnerable. And while we're seeing the impact on our case rates for those that are the most vulnerable, we're also continuing to see the impact on our fatality rates, with Vermont continuing to have fewer deaths in February compared to January and December. Looking across our region of our state, we see that there is clear improvement in Rutland and Bennington, along with Essex counties. And while there hasn't been the same degree of improvement in Franklin County, the numbers do appear to be stabilizing there. The number of active outbreaks in long-term care facilities also continues to decrease, now down to just three active outbreaks, which is consistent with the considerable fall in long-term care facility cases generally. Turning now to the Vermont forecast for the next six weeks, with the continued gradual decline that we've seen in cases over the past few weeks, our forecast is now finally anticipating that cases will continue to decrease and start to fall off more dramatically into the spring. Again, we don't know what the full impact will be of the variants and what that will do to our case counts. So it's important that we stay vigilant over the next number of weeks as we bridge into the summer and warmer months and the further progress on our vaccination program. On the hospitalization front, we continue to see improvement in our statewide numbers with the expected decline in new cases. We expect that hospitalizations will fall as well in the weeks to come. And right now, our forecasts are showing that we have plenty of resources to treat those who might need care. Turning to the college restart, this week college is across Vermont reported 82 new cases on campus bringing the spring semester total to 417. And finally, regarding vaccination, we see that the pace of vaccination in Vermont continues to be steady with the most recent CDC data continuing to rank Vermont second in the Northeast and 10th nationally in vaccines administered per 100,000 or per 100 residents, rather. And additionally, focusing on those Remanters who are fully vaccinated, Vermont continues to rank in the top 10 now ranking ninth nationally. And at this time, I'll turn it over to Dr. Levine. Before I get to my comments question, I've been asking myself a lot lately. And I hope many of you are asking the same question is we continue to see regionally and nationwide significant improvements in case numbers, as well as, of course, in those later outcomes of hospitalizations and deaths. Why do you think that might be occurring? Probably the leading contender for why that's occurring is the fact that between Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, there were significant opportunities for gatherings. Those gatherings culminated in a peak of cases that we are now starting to see a decline from. It's also postulated that potentially people have become more adherent to public health guidance with regard to distancing, avoiding crowds, and wearing masks especially. I would like to think that that one is also equally true, though probably to a much lower degree. And then finally, as the pace of vaccination has increased, we should have a natural increase in the pace of decrease in cases that have already been starting. And we're starting to see that now as well. Today I have to report that we have 82 new cases, 36 hospitalizations, and 12 people in the ICU. Unfortunately, two deaths. I join everyone here and across the nation in recognizing and mourning the heartbreaking milestone of 500,000 people lost to COVID-19. It's really difficult to envision the scale of this loss, but not if you were one of the loved ones of the two Vermonters we lost this week or the others over the past year and each and every one who made up this terrible number. This is why we're here again today to speak to the ongoing work by so many to bring an end to the toll the virus is taking. Now we cover a lot of ground at these briefings, hearing about vaccine allocation, distribution, eligibility. All of these are critical to understanding this Herculean effort that Vermont and the nation is undertaking to vaccinate as many people as we can as soon as we can. And we're beginning to see how these carefully considered and logistically complex efforts are making an impact in our state. From easing rules for long-term care residents to removing quarantine requirements and allowing for limited gathering for vaccinated people, these are small steps forward, but they are the significant steps we've been waiting for, for many months now. And the reason is vaccinations, safe and effective vaccines that are already working to protect Vermonters from COVID-19. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are about 95 percent effective among people who receive two doses, meaning they reduce a person's risk of getting COVID-19 by over 95 percent. In the vaccine world, this is an incredible success. Let me make one side point about these percentages. They are important, but as new vaccines become available, some that current studies may find have a slightly lower effectiveness percentage. They are no less important and overall beneficial. All the vaccines now available and those we hope to have available soon have still been found to prevent severe illness and death, which is what really matters most when it comes to protecting Vermonters. In fact, this is the standard in what is most commonly used to assess the efficacy of other common vaccines like the flu shot. If you are wondering why you should get vaccinated, this is why. Being vaccinated, like following our prevention efforts, wearing masks, keeping six feet apart, avoiding crowded places, is essential to ending this pandemic and getting back to normal. To put it briefly, this is how we box in the virus. It's a positive feedback loop, giving the virus fewer people to infect and make ill. And importantly, the less virus that's circulating, the fewer chances exist for it to mutate into new strains. As I've said before, every vaccinated person benefits all of us. Many of us now know more and more people every day who are getting the COVID-19 vaccine. I hear from them often, not only of how grateful they are to receive the vaccine and the relief of knowing that things are changing for the better, but also how proud they are to live in Vermont, able to take a concrete action to protect their fellow Vermonters. I do want to speak for a moment about the importance of receiving both doses of vaccine. Both the Pfizer and Moderna do require two doses, based about three weeks apart. Since the beginning, we have followed the science. These vaccines are scientifically proven to be highly effective in preventing COVID with two doses. Participants in the clinical trials who did not receive both doses were not followed for a long period of time, so we're still learning about how well or how long one dose will protect you. A two-dose vaccine is not a new concept. For some vaccines, such as hepatitis B, shingles, and HPV, or human papillomavirus, two doses are what produces a more lasting protection. While the first dose gets your immune system ready and offers some protection, the second dose boosts that protection by using your body's new immune cells that were created after the first dose. This booster increases the strength of your new antibody production, making it last longer. Not only is your level of immunity from COVID-19 stronger and longer lasting, but taking the full course of vaccine also offers better protection against variants of the virus. In fact, being only partially vaccinated, for example, getting only one dose of a two-dose vaccine, could increase the risk of vaccine-resistant variants of the virus. This is because the virus could be weakened with some antibody protection, but not stopped completely, creating the potential for the virus to mutate. Now nations such as the United Kingdom and Israel are piloting another approach where the goal is to get as many first doses into people as possible and eventually have adequate supply to provide the second dose. They fully intend to provide the second dose. This has never really been studied, but we are carefully watching and discussing it here in Vermont. Clearly after 14 days, a significant immune response is seen in these countries. And it appears to last at least five to six weeks. Efficacy is only slightly reduced at 85%, still a very good percentage. The presumed benefits to such an approach are that the race against the variants might be more quickly won, though these strains are thus far responding to our current vaccines. Or that with limited supply of vaccine, that this might be a wise upfront investment. Although allocations and the pipeline appear to be improving in promising ways, and we hope to hear even more from the governor when he arrives. Concerns that are raised are that without both doses, once immunity might wane, though there's no data to support this yet. Or that a delayed second dose might not prove to be as effective, though again we don't have data yet to support such a concern. Now in the U.S., no such policy has been advanced by CDC, FDA, or the Biden administration. The closest anyone has come is that CDC allows for the second dose to be given as long as six weeks after the first dose. I raised this discussion here today, not because we've decided to delay second doses, but to make you aware that we are as always being thoughtful and deliberate in evaluating the science constantly. Now if anyone's afraid to take the vaccine because of fear of side effects, I have what should be reassuring news for you. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have equal doses in their first and second shots, but some people have reported experiencing stronger side effects after the second shot. Generally speaking, this is your body's immune reaction to that boost in protection. The CDC just reported on experiences after the first month of vaccination, over 13 million doses, and they detailed reports of 7,000 adverse effects to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, or VAERS. 91% of these events were classified as non-serious. One side effects were pain at the injection site, seen in about 70%, or chills or tiredness or headache. These side effects typically went away within a day or two. A total of 62 cases of anaphylaxis occurs. Now that translates into 4.5 cases per million doses, so it's truly a rare event and in keeping with what's reported in other vaccines. Whether you experience side effects or not, know that the vaccine is working to protect you, your family, and your community. And know that after receiving the second dose, just like with the flu vaccine, it will take two more weeks to ensure the full protection of the vaccine. So don't let up on those public health precautions we always talk about. And finally, other signs of change in Vermont or on the horizon, even if it doesn't look like it outside our windows. Maple season is fast approaching, marking the end of winter and a thawing of the landscape. In 2020, our state's pandemic response began just as the SAP began to run. Last year, the virus taught us, unfortunately, that we could not always have safe gatherings in the sugar house. This year, a visit to the sugar house to enjoy Vermont's wonderful tradition in agricultural heritage is unfortunately on hold again. Maple open house weekend, the chance to see maple syrup being boiled at the sugar house has been canceled, as well as the St. Albans Maple Festival in April. But despite COVID-19, our nation's leading maple producers will be in the woods soon as they have for hundreds of years continuing the Vermont Maple tradition. But while a visit to the local sugar house will have to wait until next year, folks can still enjoy and support our maple producers by buying Vermont Maple syrup at a farm stand or a grocery near you, or find a local producer online through the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association website. And in the post-vaccine era, we will look forward to visiting again next year. We'll start the question and answer period. Thank you. Actually, I might just wait for the governor of Petzl, yeah. Go ahead. Steve. Same. Okay. We will go through the bombings for now. I'm just wondering about that slow, steady decline in Vermont into the spring. And we seem to be trailing our New England counterparts. And I'm wondering, is there something that we're not doing that we should be doing that they're doing better than we are? Yeah. I would definitely hope not because I think we've been doing things so well all along. I think one of the things is that we started at a very, very low baseline. So it's going to take something much more dramatic to show the impact on that baseline compared to literally everywhere else in the region where the baseline was much higher. Still in this latest surge that occurred throughout these holidays from the fall into the winter, we had a certain peak that I have to acknowledge. However, the fact is, I think we're coming down a little more slowly, but still our baseline I think was the issue. All right. Got an email this morning, Dr. Levine, about a church in Chester where, quote, nobody wears masks. They meet every week for services. I reported it to the state. My ex goes to church there, says they don't need masks because they're covered with prayer. You know anything about that? I don't know anything about that specific. But if you could forward us the information, we do have the ability to provide more education and see what's going on there. All right. Yeah. Commissioner Sherling, are you hearing anything about Chester? I am on, but I have not heard anything about that either. I would encourage folks to either to report to their local agency. Okay. One last thing for Dr. Levine. Yesterday, there was a report about a cluster at the UVM Health Network Hospital in Plattsburg in which some staff who have been fully vaccinated are now in quarantine. Could you explain why would that be necessary? I mean, is that also Vermont's protocol? Yeah, I'm going to need more detail on exactly what went on in Plattsburg. Clearly a lot of this depends on when you were vaccinated, how many doses you've received and how far beyond that time you are. So that we'd have to... They reported that it was two weeks after the last dose, almost exactly two weeks after the last dose. No patients and at least a couple of staff in the surgical unit there are now in quarantine and I was just wondering if that would also be our protocol. Yeah. So my sense is if they have quarantined them, the idea is that they felt they were still potentially infectious or infected at a time that was made them more vulnerable in their vaccine course. We do have more rigid guidelines for those who are health care workers than for the general public as well. So I'm sure they're being very cautious. Looks like the governor has just arrived, so we'll let him make his comments, hopefully with some good news. Thank you Dr. Levine. If it wasn't good news, I might not have come down. So apologies for the delay again, but as was mentioned, I just got off another call with fellow governors with the White House regarding COVID updates. Last week as you might recall, a national allocation of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines was 13.5 million and this week they announced that that will increase to 14.5 which is about... Which will mean about a thousand more doses for Vermont. The White House also guaranteed that this will be a minimum supply for the next three weeks, so again stay tuned, we'll see what that means next week. Additionally, as you again might recall, there was the federal pharmacy program and that program, that pilot program, we'll see a slight increase from two to 2.1 million this week and that will only mean about 100 more doses for Vermont, so it won't make a significant impact on us. We also discussed Johnson & Johnson. They are in hopes that Johnson & Johnson will receive emergency use authorization this week within the week and in terms of anticipated supply, they said the first week we could count on if they're approved. The first week we could expect about 2 million doses to be distributed which will be split with the same per capita strategy as current vaccines. This would mean again about 2,000 more doses per week from Johnson & Johnson out of the gate for Vermont. However, they couldn't commit after the approval, they couldn't commit to a steady supply over three weeks, they weren't sure whether that could be maintained or not but they also added that they anticipate 20 million doses by the end of March which didn't make a lot of sense to me at the time but we'll stay tuned and see what that means if they're approved. We also heard from General Perna that last week's storm impacted supply for many states but they should be caught up, they reported by Friday, fortunately these storms didn't have a large impact on Vermont. So again we're hopeful that Johnson & Johnson will come online soon so we can continue to make steady progress. Next, as Commissioner Pichek showed, we continue to see encouraging trends across the nation and in Vermont as spread of the virus continues to slow down. It's a reminder that we're getting closer every single day to vaccinating all the most vulnerable who want it and continue to be our top priority. So as we do, it's as important as ever to follow public health guidance even as we're able to make important steps forward. This point was made on the White House call as well with the CDC that it's really important for us to continue to keep up these efforts. And as Secretary Smith mentioned, we're making great progress through our 70-plus population and should be able to open up to 65 and over sometime next week. This supports our age banding approach as we get to those at risk or at greatest risk of death quickly and shows we're moving closer and closer to the light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, as we announced on Friday, effective today, Vermonters who are fully vaccinated can travel without quarantine. Visitors who can prove they've been vaccinated can visit Vermont without quarantine as well. Building on this, I'm now announcing the first step as it relates to our gathering restrictions. Again, there will be many what ifs and what abouts that will come when we take this turn of the spigot. But as we said last week, we're taking a methodical step-by-step approach and hope to have further details on these questions in the coming days. But having said that, effective immediately, effective today, anyone who's been fully vaccinated may gather with another household, regardless of whether the other household has been fully vaccinated or not. To give you an example, if your parents are fully vaccinated, you could go to their house for dinner or vice versa. Or if you're a nurse who was vaccinated in phase 1A, you can visit a friend, even if they're not vaccinated yet. But this only applies to one household at a time. We're working through how this would impact other issues, but again, hopefully you'll understand we hope to have more answers in the days to come. And as a reminder, we're doing this because the CDC guidance changed earlier this month. Because they concluded that not only do vaccines protect you from COVID-19, but they also prevent you from spreading it, which is very encouraging news. So again, we'll have more to share in the week ahead, but we're moving in the right direction. And with that, I'll turn it back over to questions. Questions? No, I'm fine. Thank you, Governor. So as you've probably seen, the legislature is working on a mini-stimulus package of its own. It's got some help for businesses, mental health for kids, workforce, a few other proposals. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the package so far, if you like it, and sort of if there's anything that you would like to see that's not in the report. Yeah, very encouraging because some of the pieces were some of our efforts, whether it be in our budget or whether it be in the Budget Adjustment Act, but they didn't move forward with, for instance, the $10 million that we had in the Budget Adjustment that they decide not to include in the Budget Adjustment and they were going to put it in another package. That's where that money went. So that's our proposal. That's great news, as well as the other pieces. They decided to move forward with like the state parks infrastructure and so forth. There's other pieces that were taken out of the budget that we proposed. So they've added some, but I don't see any showstoppers at this point, and I think it's great news for Vermont to be able to, because these are projects that we, they can hit the ground running, can put shovels in the ground almost immediately, and this is good news. So I applaud them for their work thus far. I have a two-pronged question for you and probably for Secretary Smith as well. In a letter to lawmakers, the BSEA is saying that, you know, some state employees, such as correctional officers, DCF workers and lieutenants within the state police, they should be higher up on the vaccine prioritization, because if they were to catch COVID, it would create some significant staffing issues. Yeah. I guess, what is your response? Well, again, we want everyone to be vaccinated and we get a lot of letters from all types of different sectors wanting to be put to the front of the line. And we understand that, and we're very happy that there's this pent-up demand, because we want to make sure that we're able to vaccinate the majority of Vermonters when they're able to do so. So we continue to reflect on that. We want to get through our age-banding approach, get to at least the 65 and over and those with chronic health conditions in phase five, and then we'll move on to phase six, and we're still contemplating what that could mean. But certainly, they make a lot of good points, as do others in different sectors. So we're doing the best we can, but we think the age-banding approach has been simple, easily understood, and we've been protecting ourselves pretty well when you look over the last 12 months. And we're just going to have to continue to protect ourselves a little bit longer in those different sectors for the next two or three months as we catch up and are able to increase the supply on a weekly basis and get the vaccinations in the arms of needy Vermonters. And just the natural follow-up, you know, California, it appears, is earmarking about 10 percent of its weekly doses for teachers. That way they can still move through their prioritization but also slowly get through teachers as well. I'm wondering if that's something that maybe, you know, Vermonters considered doing or would consider. Again, we're going to work our way through, get to our age-banding 65 and over. We know that's where the most deaths have occurred, 90 percent of the deaths have occurred in those 65 and over. So that's what we're focused on. We want to make sure that we protect loss of life, and that's why we've taken the approach we have. Now, again, after we take care of 65 and over and those with chronic health conditions, then we'll go on to phase six, and we're still trying to determine a path forward there. We may continue with the approach we've taken and continue with the age-banding, or we may try something else to satisfy a certain sector. But at this point in time, we have not made any decisions as yet. And every, you know, I will say, every state is using a different strategy. And some work, some don't. I think I just saw this morning where Connecticut had tried to incorporate a, I think, essential worker type of program, and they've now ceased that and gone to strictly age-banding. So every state is different. And we're learning as we go along, and we'll learn from other states. Other states will learn from us as well. But ours is working pretty well thus far. According to some criticism anyway from the Superintendent's Association, they were talking about the transparency and maybe flushing out some of the numbers a little bit more so that they can get a better handle as they're looking to reopen the schools. Has the administration been talking with the superintendents and kind of trying to come to some sort of a what-do-they-need type situation? I assume that either Secretary French has been in constant contact with the superintendents almost on at least a weekly, if not daily basis. So I'm not sure what the needs are, but we want to try and provide as much information as possible so that they can move forward and put kids back in school, which we know is the best for our kids. I think it was an interpretation of the numbers and how they're interpreted and how they can relate that to their specific districts. Well, we certainly want to give them as much information. I'm not sure what that is. If anyone else has any or Secretary French has any new information on that. Good morning, Governor. No, we have frequent communications with the superintendents. I think it's fair to say all those communications now are more or less focused on what we're terming a recovery phase. And certainly part of that will be to point districts to assessing the condition of their districts. But there hasn't, from my perspective, been a large need for more data as an obstacle for reopening schools at this point. But I would agree that I think everyone's wondering what the impact the emergency truly has been on our students. And particularly as we try to focus in on issues of quality and equity, we're going to need to ask them information. So I think we're all in agreement on that. And sort of school related, but we've been open now for a couple of weeks, I think, on the sports situation. Where are we at? Have we had good results so far or safe results, I should say? Dr. Levine. The one not noteworthy thing is though there are still cases present in schools, we're not noticing them to be sports related. I've not been noting a lot of teams being impacted by cases. So probably no different than when we were in the previous phase at this point in time where they were just practicing amongst themselves and scrimmaging amongst themselves. And I mean youth sports, same thing. We haven't seen any breakouts. For instance, the hockey ranks or the gymnasium. Not that I'm aware of, no. Good morning. I think these questions are probably for Secretary French. Related thanks, first of all, for your office for sharing the survey of principals several weeks ago. Readers have asked, how will we know if kids have progressed or regressed when the pandemic is over? And how does the agency of education plan to handle assessing students and comparing their current status to 2019 and 2020? Yeah, it's a great question. But I mentioned previously at press conferences, we have been monitoring the federal guidance pertaining to our SAC assessments, those are the mandatory assessments that were required to give every year. Late last night, yesterday afternoon, the U.S. Department of Education issued some guidance that we've been waiting for. So it looks like we will be required to offer the SAC. But we still have some options under, I guess, to be characterized as a flexibility waiver. That's still being formulated in our team is still trying to understand what that guidance is. But certainly, I think one of the tools in our toolkit will be to look at that statewide assessment, because we do have the data from at least the year before last print. And given that the Common Core Standards spell out skills that students need to learn at each grade level in order to be ready for college and careers, how will the state catch up to students as necessary? I catch them. Yeah, I think that's the best. Catch them up. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's certainly the intention and why we're calling attention to the safety to move towards what we call a recovery phase. Again, I think Vermont has been a special place to do that, considering their conditions are so positive. And I really feel we have a responsibility to try to do more in that regard. So I think the first step is not to necessarily assume that all students have experienced the same impact from the leader in academic or social or emotional standpoint. So at the point districts are firstly into that assessment sort of mode. So they're listening very closely to what their students are going through, what their staff needs, and so forth. But then to begin to create an implementation plan at the local level and how to address those needs. So I think it's critical that we start moving to that space. And I hope that before school gets out of the spring, we'll have a good understanding of what those conditions are. And districts will have at least initial plans in place to address those needs. And just one final follow-up on that. Is Vermont going to need to reset its accountability standards for school? Not necessarily. That's one of the areas in the waiver that we were expecting to see. Once again, we haven't fully digested the guide, but the seers and the communication that we received last night that one of the options we have is to have a waiver for county accountability provisions so that we can have a significant impact. But we'll have to evaluate. Great, thank you very much. Yeah, I was just curious given the big initial uptake when the 70 plus phase opened up, 7,000 calls I believe it was in the first 15 minutes. If there's anything sort of being done ahead of 65 plus opening up, maybe this time around just sort of anticipating that there's going to be that strong initial turnout. Are there any changes to how many people will be answering calls, things like that to prepare for it? I'll let Secretary Smith answer that, but I just want to remind everyone that during the day, we had accomplished a great deal. We signed up over half the population in the first day. So that's remarkable in some respects, but we're always striving to do better, Secretary Smith. Yeah, I do want to reiterate what the governor said during that day, a tremendous success in signing people up both online and through the call center. We are urging, especially as we start coming down on the age bands, we are urging people to use the healthvermont.gov slash my vaccine website to sign up. It's easy from everything that everybody is telling us. It is simple. And in fact, you can set your account, like I said in my remarks, you can set your account up ahead of time. And when the next age band, next Monday, March 1st, when it opens up, you can simply go onto the website, you're already registered and then you pick your time, date and place for your vaccine. I would urge people to use that website. It seems to be the best way. Also, we have partners that you can use for signing up Walgreens I mentioned in my remarks. And then lastly, we have 300 or so call takers that we use during that day. And if a crunch comes in, we try to alleviate that crunch. Now that crunch wasn't all that significant, although to people calling in it's always significant. It was for about an hour period during the first sign up. So we think we can accommodate much of the crunch that's coming in, but I would urge people, especially as we're going down these age bands 65 and up now that we use the online registration. It seems to be the simplest. It seems to be easy to use. And most people get right on right away with no trouble. Hey, thank you. Good afternoon, good afternoon. I have two questions I believe they would both be for Governor Scott, yesterday there was a rally outside the UPS store in Newport. People protesting, mandating wearing masks. A lot of the claim that it is in the dictatorial. All right, but you ignore the dictator. But if you have to respond to it, what can you tell these people to have them understand why you took the actions you did and why it's legal for you to do so? Yeah, I didn't get the whole question, but I think I get the flavor of it. I realized it was a protest of sorts in front of the UPS store yesterday as a reminder to everyone, the franchise, the corporate folks ceased or eliminated the franchise agreement due to non-conformance because they weren't conforming to the agreement they signed. Part of that was due to the mass mandate that we had implemented here in Vermont. We are able to do that. I was able to do that because of the emergency order. And we thought and we know that was for good reason. This has prevented the spread. We've been successful in Vermont. Most people, the majority of Vermonters have conformed and done the right thing just to wear a mask. And I would advocate again, this situation with UPS franchise, franchisee was preventable. All you had to do was wear a mask, pretty simple. Most everyone else is doing it and it has prevented loss of life here in Vermont and the spread of the virus. So we stand by that. Unfortunate for the franchisee, a business, but hopefully they can work out something with the corporate folks and get back in business. I think this has been a bit of a boon for the pick and shovel as I understand because you can still go there and ship packages. The alternatives, yes. The next question which is related is complaints were going to the attorney general's office last summer and they didn't take any action till November when they filed a cease and do this letter. And then there was no follow-up until the news broke last week in the press. Is your administration, I know because it's a different branch of government, is your administration in touch with the attorney general's office to see how many people are complying with your directive and whether or not they're doing follow-up in the appropriate amount of time because your directive has a lot of bark but no bite, you get the bite, you need to have it enforced in the AG's office that has to do enforcement. Well again, we've taken a different approach here in Vermont. We chose to get down the path of education first. We thought that carrot is much better than a stick approach and trying to get people to comply so they can stay in business. So we've done that throughout and when that is no longer that doesn't work then the attorney general takes action at that point. I wasn't aware that there was action taken in November. That's probably a better question for the attorney general. I just learned about it. Yeah, really? I just learned about this situation. Yeah, I just wanted to know if your staff was in contact with the AG's office to see how effective how effective your master requirement is working. Here's the only, this is only the second situation that I know of. There was a situation in Rotland that was the gym in Rotland that they took action and this I'm not sure that they actually took action or just served the business and that was I believe last week. But if you're saying that it was back in November, I just don't have any knowledge of that. So I wasn't aware of that. I learned about it on social media and some of what your paper I think had shown. So and then maybe that's where the, maybe that's where the AG found out but probably a better question for the AG. I wasn't aware that they had taken action before this. Okay, yeah, last week they sent out a second season to this door, but thank you very much for answering. Okay. Governor, if I may, it's a... Yeah, go ahead, Mike. I may just be able to add a little bit of context here. The attorney general has been, their office has been very responsive. There have been a number of things that they assisted with short of having to send a letter. And it's important to note that the flow of information is coming from most often the department of public safety to the attorney general to engage them in these educational efforts. So it's not really flowing in the other direction where reports are going to the AG and then back down through. So I just wanted to make that clear. Good point. Thank you. Thanks, Rebecca. Governor Scott or Secretary Smith, we continue to get back to questions dealing with the inconsistency of Vermonters being able to cut the line for vaccine shots or as Secretary Smith has called it a few times, gaming the system. Every week it seems there's a different group or person getting their shots privately. And this week got an email, got a DCF worker who is working from home, not out in the community, showing her card with the dates of her two shots and proudly saying she got her shots. And we're also hearing Calvin touched on this, but I guess I'd like to know. We're hearing that some prison inmates have been getting shots, but correctional guards are not getting shots. I mean, had inmates received vaccine shots and guards denied. And more generally, tracking which state employees have received their shots and which ones are actually authorized to get the shots and which ones are unauthorized, but it's still gotten them. I'll let Secretary Smith answer the bulk of that. But I would mention those who are incarcerated, the offenders who are incarcerated that fall in the age bands will get their shot just like everyone else. They'll be vaccinated just along with everyone else. So that's been across the board. In terms of the DCF worker, I'm not sure, but Secretary Smith. Yeah, the governor makes the point on corrections. If either employee or inmate falls within the age band, they will get the vaccination in terms of making sure that they're vaccinated within that age band. I am not familiar with any DCF worker that would qualify with the circumstances that you are talking about. I'd like to know about that incident and we'll reach out to you, Mike. Okay. And one follow up, apparently the state police officers with a rank of lieutenant enough have been refused their vaccines. It's only the sergeants on down. Understandably, some of these lieutenants are on the road, stopping for modders and having contact with them, responding to complaints. Some are actually filling full shifts because some of the barracks are so short staffed and everything. And yet these lieutenants and captains get to get their vaccine shot. I was told that even one lieutenant was threatened with possible discipline. If they went and got a shot when there was to avoid some spoilage, apparently somebody called the barracks and said, we're gonna throw some out if we don't have a few people to come down. And the lieutenant may have had to ignore the invitation for fear of being disciplined by the department. Wondering if you or Commissioner Sherling know if there's any directive allowing or disallowing state police lieutenant's captains from getting shots. I'll let Commissioner Sherling respond to that. But we were very specific in terms of the areas of first responders who was eligible and who wasn't eligible in regard to vaccine. But I'll let Commissioner Sherling reply specifically to the lieutenant's situation. Certainly, thanks for the question, Mike. This is something we dealt with three or four weeks ago was brought to our attention. There was a concern. But as the secretary rightfully pointed out that the definition of who can get the vaccine in the first response community to include the state police is folks that are regularly assisting with either patient care movement or transportation in support of the healthcare system. So anyone who meets that definition is eligible for a vaccine. Not familiar with an incident that you described. We have very specifically given our staff and other state employees direction that if they're proactively contacted by a vaccine distribution site to avoid spoilage that is certainly within bounds. But that proactively going out in any way put themselves on a lift to try to get ahead in line is out of bounds. So I think that's what that instance is referring to. And what are we talking here? It would only take 20 shots to get your lieutenant vaccinated. I think that number would be 24. But again, the rubric that's been established based on the science is that we're trying to reduce the risk to the healthcare system and those assisting with healthcare provision. So the moment we make an exception to that we have as the governor has stated multiple times we have lots of really good arguments in cases being made for why certain population should be vaccinated. And it's difficult to sift through all of those. So we've established some rubrics that are easy to understand, that follow the science and that are designed to preserve the healthcare system's ability to operate and to save lives. And that's what we're gonna stick with. Would you be willing to share those letters of all the groups that can pay out and move to the front of the line? I don't know if you heard that. I didn't hear what. Yeah, we do have a list. But those letters would be available for public review. Are you asking for letters from various groups that have asked to be prioritized? Yeah, I mean, you keep saying we keep getting letters asking to move to the front of the line or for an exception. Just wondering what they're using as excuses that they'd be addressing to really why they think they ought to be. Yeah, we certainly could share those, Mike. Okay, if you would, thank you. Again, I have a great deal of sympathy, especially for our law enforcement, our correctional officers and others who are on the front lines every single day. And so we want to get to them as quick as we possibly can. We have a limited supply of the vaccine. So we have to prioritize and we decided to prioritize loss of life first. That's our number one initiative. So that's why we went to the age banding approach that we were committed to. And thus far by the data, it appears to be working. So we're going to continue down this path and trying to get to everyone just as quick as we possibly can. But as a reminder, it's just been two months now that we've had the vaccine. So think about the 10 months previous or the nine months previous that we did a pretty good job of not becoming infected, of preventing loss of life without a vaccine. We're just asking to go, we need a little bit longer. We need like three more months until you can get your position in getting the vaccine. So just again, think about those on the front lines in the hospital, in the healthcare community that for nine months went in to those patients who were infected, had the virus, had contracted that, but they were able to with the PPE, with the distancing, with everything else, were able to prevent themselves from being infected. So again, we've done a pretty good job of this thus far. And that's why we keep talking about the need to not let our guard down, to continue to wear a mask, keep a distance, wash our hands, don't go into large gatherings. Everything that we talked about is really important for at least the next three to four months. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Hi everybody, good afternoon, as usual here. Governor, a really quick question. There was a garble at least on my end when you first started talking. How many doses before talking Johnson and Johnson will Vermont be receiving this week with the additional doses that you mentioned? Yeah, it's- You heard from what it's gonna get us there. So we were last week, they increased the allotment across the nation by about a million doses. So that means about another 1,000 for us. So we were getting, let's just say, rounded off to about 13.5,000. That'll give us another 1,000 to 14.5,000. So that's fairly close. Don't hold me to the exact numbers, but pretty close. Well, that's the ballpark. So that's for a week, right? Yes, and they've committed for the next three weeks as a minimum, that's what we'll get. And keep in mind on top of that, they ship us doses of the second dose that's not accounted in that. So we continue to vaccinate the second dose to those Vermonters that have received the first one. Okay, great. Thank you. And the second question, people who have in the 75 and over and more recently the 70 to 74 age band, some of them are still getting sick or catching COVID. Are they, are the people who are still getting sick? Are they unvaccinated or have there been cases here where the one in 20 of the people who have been vaccinated are getting sick even though they have been vaccinated? I think this is a great question for Dr. Levine, but again, from my, as a layperson, we've heard many, many times that it's not totally effective until you receive your, you get your first dose, second dose about a month later, let's say. And then there's two weeks after that after your second dose. So it doesn't really work until two months after your first dose or a month and a half anyhow. So Dr. Levine. So we do have a small number of cases that we know had a vaccine and got ill. Usually it's between the first and second dose. We just don't have enough experience yet with enough people who've had second doses and have gone several weeks later and then are getting sick. So I think I'd ask you to wait a little longer for that kind of data to emerge. But the other important point is the most important point I made in my opening comments that no matter what we call the efficacy of the vaccine to it's for its ability to make you ill or not, if you take the vaccine and you still get ill, all the vaccine platforms that are currently being investigated and close to or have already been authorized really protect you against being in the hospital, against having serious illness, against being really having a complicated course that could, God forbid, culminate in death. So it's okay even with the flu shot for people to still get mild flu symptoms even though they had the shot. Now they could view that as a failure of the shot or they could understand that instead of getting the flu that would put them in the hospital with pneumonia and severe illness, they got some mild flu-like symptoms and were out of work for a day or two. That still could be viewed as a success of the vaccine. So it's all in your interpretation of the endpoint you're looking for. Most of the endpoints that people are looking most seriously at are the ones for more severe illness. Well, have you noticed that? Are the people in those older age bands who have been vaccinated and still do get sick? Are they getting less sick than they were? Yeah, I think the data is so spotty and we have such few numbers of cases that I can't give you a sort of generalizable answer at this point. It's too early. Okay, great, thank you very much. Hi there. So on Friday I think it was the Agency of Commerce and Community Development released a memo saying that hospitality business should expect that sometime in the spring the state's gonna be back to gathering and travel guidance that's like or better than where we were last August. And I'm wondering, since you were able to release that information, if there is this possibility of more openness coming up, what are your expectations for the coming school year when it comes to college? Do you know what it would take to allow students to return to campus in the way they did in a normal year in 2019? Again, this might be a better question for Dr. Levine, but from my standpoint, if we continue to receive the supply that we're receiving, it appears to me we'll be in pretty good shape by mid-summer, late summer. So we should have a seamless re-engagement with the higher education with colleges and universities come September. So I would think things may not be exactly back to normal, but a lot more normal than they are today and certainly more normal than in September or in February. Dr. Levine. And I go along with everything that was just said. The uncertainty is always going to be on the dates and even Dr. Fauci is constantly hedging on the dates, but it's not a hedge because he doesn't have the information or is not a knowledgeable person. It's really because there is no certainty. We have to understand how many people are going to take the vaccine and what percentage of the population, how many people are gonna continue to adhere to the public health guidance and our approach to suppressing the virus no matter what happens with vaccine. It depends on variants and if variant strains become an important issue or do not become an important issue. So all of those have to be factored in, but clearly we would really hope that by the fall, at some point in the fall, that we do have a markedly different approach to how we behave every day. If that has to wait until into the late fall or winter, so be it, but that's still going to happen at that point in time. And it's not dependent on this concept of herd immunity. Herd immunity is important. We wanna get to that point, but you don't have to get there and then everything flows from that point in time. You can still be on your way to herd immunity and have a lot of these changes occur. Certainly college-age students will be able to get the vaccine in the summertime at the latest, I would think, based on the pace that things are occurring. So they should be ready for the fall semester and be in a very different place than they are right now. Similarly, their faculty, most of them being older than them, will have already had the vaccine as will all the staff on those campuses. So I think the onboarding process for college campuses in the fall is gonna be far different than it was for this semester. Yes, I would certainly hope so. I also had a question for Commissioner Harrington. Is he still on the line? I am. I'm just wondering if you're any closer now to knowing exactly how many Vermonters had their social security numbers compromised in the mailing. And also, have you heard about any problems with identity theft arising out of the data breach? And I have one more question in that vein. I know the letters are just going out now with the info, but have any Vermonters yet started using the identity theft protection provided by the state? Let me start at the end there. I'm not aware of anybody signing up yet. That being said, I believe people did start receiving their identity theft protection letters, maybe as early as yesterday, but I'm guessing most Vermonters will receive their letters today and tomorrow, just given where they're being mailed from and the time it takes for them to get delivered. To the question about the number of Vermonters, I'm not sure we will ever know the exact count. We are constantly receiving return 1099s to this day, but I think we have taken a position of an abundance of caution and casting a very wide net. So wanting to make sure that anybody who had a 1099 that left this building would receive not only the coverage, but be notified of the incident. I think when we look at the numbers, we know that the incident really involved the loss wages assistance program and the Vermont short-term supplemental benefit program. And in that population, we know there was probably somewhere around 45,000 individuals. So again, that being said, places where the harder part to nail down are places where maybe a claimant's name and social appeared together, but got delivered to the wrong person because there were also a number of instances where it was a name and the social did not match that went to an individual. So again, there's different levels of risk throughout this entire thing. So I think from that perspective, we're looking at the big population, which is probably, when we look at the number of people that received benefits in 2020, that population is about 100,000 claimants who received benefits in the 2020 calendar year in terms of specific people in the two programs where we have known issues, it's probably more like 45,000. And there was another question there, and I just don't remember it if you want to mention it again. I was wondering if you had heard any reports of anyone experiencing identity theft as a result of this? No, I mean, so identity theft is reported to us on a daily basis, just given how rampant it has been during COVID-19 and the pandemic is seen across the country. So I think the hard part is going to be if someone experiences identity theft, actually tracking down where the root of that occurred. So we do know that there is identity theft occurring on a regular basis, but identifying and drawing a straight line back to either a prior data breach by a national company or organization versus this specific incident, that is a much harder task, but we are able to track and know where 1099s went. So if there is a strong indication that it was likely a result of this incident, we could investigate and go back to see where that 1099 may have ended up, but I'm not aware of any confirmed cases of identity theft related to this specific incident. Okay, thanks very much. Thank you. Hi, Governor, I have a question about city place Burlington, but just to be clear on Willie's follow-up to your follow-up, you're expecting Vermont to get 14.5,000 initial doses a week once this, the new doses command, is that correct? Yeah, that's about a 1,000 number of, 1,000 more doses than we're receiving right now. It'd be 14.5 total. Correct. Okay, as one of your take is on city place Burlington, it looks like they're on the cusp of moving forward. I don't know if this goes to what happened tonight against the city council, but this is gonna be the biggest building project going forward for some time, I'm sure almost 200 million, but that's like 5 million. You're a construction person, what is your take both on the impact of this project and on how it's proceeding politically? Well, certainly it sounds as though they've come to agreement, that's good news, and that this can move forward. We've heard this before, and so I'll reserve judgment until I see some more activity on the ground. So this is in need, obviously, I want to make sure that something moves forward in Burlington, it's been an eyesore for those who live there and for Church Street in particular, so looking forward to the project, restarting and completing. We're going to have a lot of construction here, a lot of construction activity in Vermont with some of the initiatives that we put forward in our infrastructure package to invest in areas of high concern to us, that give us a great amount of return. And so it's going to be an active year, construction-wise in Vermont. All right, great, thanks very much. Yes, this is a question about the change in gatherings. Could you clarify a little bit on exactly how that works? Is someone who's vaccinated allowed to gather with multiple other people as long as it's one-on-one? It seems like with the trusted household policy, like you only had that one other household, would vaccinated people be allowed to gather with other people? Yes, just not at the same time. So just to be clear, so if someone was fully vaccinated plus two weeks, they could go visit one family that's not vaccinated today. Now tomorrow, they could go to another family, another, maybe a sibling or whoever, and visit them the next day, same conditions, but not at the same time. You can't have multiple households more than the one-on-one. It can't be more than two households at a time. Does that make sense? And you said one day to the next, could somebody who's vaccinated have multiple gatherings on the same day as long as they're only one-on-one? Sure, yes. Thank you. Hi, I had an interesting question from a viewer. She and her husband are both phase one A workers, so they're both fully vaccinated at this point. Their kids are all younger than 16, so they are not able to get any of the COVID vaccines. If her family travels out of state, do their kids have to quarantine when they return? Yeah, I'm going to refer to Dr. Levine on this, but this is another one of those what-ifs, what-about questions that we keep talking about, and we're going to get to them as quick as we possibly can. Dr. Levine. I'll make this a twofer. So the kids would have to quarantine. If they were following the newest policy that you just heard, the kids being unvaccinated can't be considered part of the vaccinated family who then gathers with the other household. Got it, that will help clarify, I think for some families out in Vermont. So given that children won't be able to receive the vaccine anytime soon because they're still in the trials or how it would affect them, what is the message then to families with younger kids moving forward once the parents are able to get vaccinated? Should they plan to make quarantining part of a travel routine for the summer or for the next holiday season until a vaccine for kids is available? Or is there a point at which enough adults will be vaccinated in the general population that their restrictions on them will ease? Yeah, these are all really good questions, and these are the kinds of questions we're grappling with every day, which is why the governor said he knows that one decision opens up that multiple sets of doors. So I don't foresee for the foreseeable future that kids won't be able to get vaccinated. I do think that we're going to start hearing from some of the newer platforms and trials about kids, or at least maybe not lump all kids but decreasing the age from 16 down to a certain point, depending on how the trial was set up. So that point may come in time over spring or summer, I don't want to really predict, but for the foreseeable future, I think what you advised would have to happen that because kids would not be eligible for vaccination, they would still have to follow the same kind of rules that we've had all along until we reach a point where we decided those would not be necessary. I don't want to tell you what that point is at this point, because we don't really know. Not just Vermont or us, but nationwide or even beyond the borders of the country. So those are all the kinds of things that are going to be hopefully data and science driven over time and not just wild guesses that we all make. Last travel related question, what should lodging establish and see doing to confirm vaccination status and is the state going to be issuing new guidance to them explicitly telling them how to confirm that through the paperwork that they already have to do? I believe Deputy Secretary Brady is on. Perfect. Yes, this is Ted Brady, the Deputy Secretary for the Agency of Commerce. The Agency of Commerce will be updating the work state memo on the website at accd.vermont.gov to reflect the changes in the vaccination policy for lodging establishment. We've already updated the certificate of compliance that we asked lodging properties to have all their guests complete. And so if you're a lodging property and you're curious how this affects you, you can download the new certificate of compliance at accd.vermont.gov that reflects the updated vaccination allowance for your travelers. Thank you everyone. Just want to underscore that we want people who are fully vaccinated to carry their vaccine cards. Make sure you have them with you so that there's a proof of whatever we do in the future. Just make sure you have them. Have a question from a reader. It seems like it might be able to be answered in two different ways. The reader says she is a 63 year old home caregiver to her 97 year old mother. And she is wondering whether there's any provision for primary caregivers such as herself to get vaccinated. She said her mother has been vaccinated. Being 63, she's not eligible right now and she believes she won't be eligible until May. That may provide a possible answer as well. Yeah, I would say she's partially correct in that she's not eligible at this point in time. The good news is her mom is fully vaccinated. It sounds as though. And so it wouldn't be susceptible to contracting the virus. So that's really good news. She'll have to wait until that banding 60 and over. Don't know when that's going to be. That's the only part it may be May. I'm just not sure. We haven't gone that far out, but she's correct. At this point in time with the supplies we have coming into the state, she'll have to wait for age banding. Thank you. And I think this question is for Commissioner Hirington. Last time flies, not all that long ago, Congress passed an extension providing a supplement of $300 to people's unemployment compensation and extending federal unemployment compensation. How close is the expiration of those extensions and how many people would be affected at present if they were to end? I would have to get back to you on the total number of people. So it's not just about the number of people receiving a particular benefit, but where they are in the number of weeks they receive. There was an 11 week maximum extension and that for a lot of people, I think, got them through the benefit week that ends March 13th. Our recent review and knowledge about the American Recovery Plan is that a lot of those benefits are likely to be continued, but we are aware that there is always that potential that time may run out. And so we are preparing for that and have already started the process of that. But right now indications look like the benefits and particularly the pandemic unemployment assistance and the pandemic emergency unemployment compensation are the two federal programs that are providing those base benefits to folks beyond the end of their regular UI benefits. And then obviously, like you said, the federal pandemic unemployment compensation or FPUC with the additional 600, now it's the additional 300. Again, there's some caveats in there depending on when someone triggered on to those programs and a little bit more of a runway depending on when they came on board, but for the most part, the 11 weeks will end somewhere between the benefit week ending March 13th and or April 10th. And that's really where we're keeping an eye on that. But I think we're hopeful that there will be an extension. Thank you very much. And the other good news is the economy is opening up and more and more every day. And so there are jobs available for those who can accept them. So number, no, the number of 1099 forms that have been mailed to the state from the recall this far, mailed back to the other recall. Let me just make sure I understood the question that cut out there in the beginning for a minute, but you're wondering about the number of people who have used the return prepaid return envelopes to return the 1099s to the department. Yes. And I don't have that number yet. There's a couple of different factors. Some people went ahead and returned the 1099s using their own envelope and their own postage before their return envelope ever went out. So we did receive thousands of them before our return prepaid envelope went out. And I don't have a current count, but can certainly see if we can get an estimate of what we're looking at. But they were received, I believe, some point last week for folks. So for folks to put them in and return them to the department, we should be receiving them if we haven't already in over the coming days. Okay. I also have a question about vaccine prioritization. You know, when it comes to questions about what part of or group of Vermonters will be next, the vaccine advisory panel's recommendations did include some mention of what groups they believed should come after the 65 plus Vermonters. Is that factoring into the considerations at all? Is the vaccine advisory panel still meeting and discussing this and advising state basically kind of what's the status of the panel and those recommendations? Yeah, I would just say broadly, we're contemplating all recommendations at this point. We haven't come to make a decision at this point, but we're taking advisement from many groups. And the panel has been meeting to work with us on the group that's after age 65 and older, which is the 16 to 64 with high-risk conditions, conditions that would put one at risk for severe COVID or severe COVID outcomes. So we'll be announcing that after the 65 and over list. Okay. They've not made any new recommendations regarding other priority groups. Well, true, but they, their initial recommendations in December did include frontline essential workers after people with high-risk conditions. True, and as the governor said, we're taking that under advisement every day. We're discussing what comes after the high-risk condition group. Okay, thank you for clarifying. Thank you. I had a question about the dose allocation from the said and sort of vaccine or strategy around that. When, governor, when you say we have, we're gonna get 14.5 that or 14,500 total weekly. Now, does that include the second dose? So is that really 29,000? Yeah, it does not include the second dose. It's just the new allocation, the initial allocation. Okay. And then they will follow up with the number of doses needed for the second dose. So they ship you the second at some other point later on? That's correct. Okay. All right. Well, that cancels out my follow-up. Perfect. So, well, just one other question about vaccine sites. We've got to know from a listener who said that the Hayesons High School of Sites had only about a third of the slots full the other day. And I'm wondering is what the experience was state, or is statewide, are all slots generally taken? One would hope, but when a clinic is held, are there vacancies occasionally? I would assume there would be. And that's why we keep trying to change our strategy a bit depending on the location and trying to, in areas that have more demand and they'll have slots, we try and open up new sites. And so we're trying to develop that as we move forward. Secretary Smith. John, thanks for that question. We do have available sites around the state. Some are fill, some are not. And we urge Vermonters to look at those sites and use the sites closest to them, because that's how we sort of determine allocation. As I mentioned for the next seven days, we'll be adding additional vaccine appointments. And you mentioned Hardwick, it's probably because of underuse in Hardwick that we will open up additional vaccine appointments there. I think when we start getting to 65, a larger group now, you'll start seeing those fill up quite significantly. When we get to those high risk group, which are 75,000, you'll start seeing those fill up. That's why we're expanding, not contracting, we're actually gonna be expanding the availability of clinics in the next couple of weeks here. Okay, thanks a lot. Yes, good afternoon. Thank you, continuing on that topic. I know in the 70 plus age band opened up some of the early registrants were able to get appointments the same week. Do you expect appointments available next week for the early registrants with 65 plus, or are they gonna be booking further out? Yeah, I would imagine it. And if, yeah, I would imagine that there would be slots available next week in some locations, but I'm not sure about throughout the enterprise, so to speak. As you just heard, if there's some that have slots available even to this week, I would assume that they would be able to fill those slots next week. Does that make sense? And if we're getting 14 and a half thousand plus some direct allocations to the pharmacies per week, is it reasonable to assume 42,000 people in the next age band? It's only gonna take a little under three weeks to get through their first doses. That's our hope. Yes. And on the vaccine dashboard, does that reflect doses that are getting administered by Kenny now, and will it reflect doses that once Walgreens starts up their program? Secretary Smith. And how quickly do those get incorporated if so? Yeah, it does include Kenny's that are on the dashboard. It does not include Walgreens, I don't believe, but let me double check on that and get back to you. Thank you, everyone. Good evening, Governor. Thank you, Rebecca. As you know, Governor, last week, news broke in Franklin County that USCIS would not be renewing their lease at their existing facility. I'm wondering at the state level what's being done to ensure that these jobs, at least six or 800 good paying jobs, are gonna stay in Vermont, or at least in Franklin County, but hopefully in Franklin County, but at least in Vermont. Yeah, I know we've reached out to the congressional delegation, but it's a federal issue, as you know, probably a better question for them. They should be advocating Senator Leahy. I know Senator Sanders and Congressman Welch should all be advocating with their federal partners to make sure that they're kept in Franklin County, but we'll continue to do our part as well, but it's really in their court. I didn't know if Commissioner Harrington could fill us in on anything that maybe the Department of Labor would be working on with that. I'm not sure that there's anything that we're working on specifically with that. Again, this is a federal issue and hopefully temporary, that they'll find other locations. I'm sure there are other locations in Franklin County that might be suitable and hopefully they'll be able to stay there. All right, and one quick follow-up. You've talked about essentially, and I'm paraphrasing here, but mixing pods if you've been vaccinated. We hear often about DFWs and American legions that are closed because of social distancing, health concerns. If they have patrons that would like to come in that are fully vaccinated, that would like to mingle, would they be allowed to do something like that? As we know, it's kind of a mental health scenario for many of those veterans. I'm wondering what can be done there. Again, we want to open up those as soon as possible, easily possible, but as I mentioned before in my opening remarks, that's one of those what about questions and what does this mean and can we do this? And we'll be working our way through this as we move forward, but we're not ready to announce anything like that at this point in time. This is a one household to one household initiative and that's what we want to be clear on that. If you're vaccinated, you can go to another household that is either vaccinated or not, but it's one household to one household at this point. All right, thank you. Thank you, Governor. Thank you, Rebecca, for the time. That's it. All right, thank you very much and we'll see you again on Friday.